The Record: Mayoral pay

PATERSON, the state's third-largest city, has a bucketful of issues that need urgent and thorough discussion. How much money to pay its mayor is not one of them.

We agree with efforts to bring salaries, especially at the executive level of city government, into more conformity. The city does not, for instance, need to be paying someone six figures just to be the mayor's sidekick, more or less, as it did during the administration of Mayor Jeffery Jones.

Still, we are puzzled about the rush to create a "range" for mayoral pay — from $119,000 to $133,900 — as a new ordinance under consideration by city officials would do. Acting Business Administrator Nellie Pou says the city has been in violation of state regulations for years by not adopting an annual salary ordinance. The maximum $133,900 figure, apparently, is to make sure the top figure is higher than that for the city's law director, which is $130,000.

We tend to come down on the side of those council members who question the need for a new "salary range." Councilman Andre Sayegh got close to the heart of it when he noted: "The mayor should be entitled to one salary, period."

Bill Dressel, executive director of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, told The Record such salary scales are not unheard of, and that he sees "the logic" in establishing a pay range for non-union public employees in order "to achieve some predictability in your budgeting."

"Whether it's implemented as an ordinance or just a matter of a working plan," Dressel said, "[setting up a salary range] seems a reasonable tool to arrive at an equitable pay schedule for public employees."

Paterson Mayor Joey Torres said he has no plans to increase his pay, but if not, one has to wonder what purpose any such "range of salary" proposal would serve. In our view, a mayor's salary should be a mayor's salary, especially in a city where tax revenue is spotty and where state aid is an annual dependent resource in general budgeting.

The fact that Torres, in our estimation, still owes the city $74,000 for unused vacation and leave pay he took when he left office in 2010 gives us greater pause about any substantial pay changes in the mayor's office or related to the mayor's staff. Torres took a pay cut when he was elected mayor in May given that as Jackson Township's business administrator, he had earned a salary of $125,000.

In cities where tax revenue is more constant and reliable and budgeting a more exact science, maybe "salary ranges" for executive employees make some sense. But in Paterson, where responsible spending — particularly in regard to personnel at the executive level — is rarely seen, this makes no sense at all.